Congratulations to the Winner of Digiteum IoT Scholarship for 2021-2022
Digiteum IoT Scholarship program is a great opportunity for engineering and science students to fund their education and explore an exciting field of IoT, big data and AI development.
About Digiteum IoT Scholarship
This is our second IoT Scholarship program. After the huge success of our first program in 2019-2020, we decided to expand our reach to the UK this year. In less than a year, Digiteum IoT Scholarship has been listed by dozens of US and UK educational institutions.
By the end of the submission period on May 25, 2021, we had applications from more than 60 students on our table. IoT Scholarship Committee had a challenging job selecting among many bright and talented candidates this year.
IoT Scholarship Committee
IoT Scholarship Committee includes Digiteum co-founders, Michael Grebennikov and Katherine Lazarevich, Talent Manager, Monika Orłowicz, and Content Manager, Alexandra Bondina, who oversees the technical aspects of the program.
A few words about Scholarship Committee leadership
Michael Grebennikov is a co-founder and a Managing Director of Digiteum. Together with the Digiteum team, Michael helps businesses grow by leveraging digital technology and introducing innovation to their operations. During his 25 years of experience in IT, Michael co-founded and co-owned 3 successful IT companies with a proven record of successful project delivery. As a leader, speaker at multiple meetups and author at TMC.com, Clutch.co and other respected publications, he shares his knowledge and experience on an array of topics, including digital transformation, strategic planning, innovative technologies and business growth.
Katherine Lazarevich is a co-founder and co-CEO of Digiteum, digital transformation strategist and technology expert. Passionate about design and innovation, Katherine helps Digiteum’s clients leverage digital technology to drive efficiency and become future-ready. She has been leading and growing development teams that deliver high-value digital products for over a decade. Katherine is a strong advocate of a result-focused approach, a devotee of pixel-perfect design, and an educator who shares insights about Internet of Things, Big Data and design on such platforms as IoT for All, IoT Evolution World, Chatbots Magazine and Venturebeat.
Monika Naumczyk is a Talent Manager at Digiteum. As a senior talent specialist and strategist with extensive experience in human resources, employer branding, PR, event and people management, she brings in her vision, skill, good vibe and creativity and helps Digiteum nurture its culture and grow as a team. She worked with such brands as Staples, Sony Pictures Entertainment, GetResponse and Jeppesen, a Boeing Company. Today, Monika leads the recruiting team and works closely with management, marketing and design teams on the company’s employer branding strategy to build up and develop Digiteum’s corporate image.
IoT Scholarship Winner
Having studied the applicants’ achievements, goals and aspirations, the Committee decided to award the IoT Scholarship to an exceptional candidate, Jack Worthington.
We were impressed by Jack’s academic record, entrepreneurship and responsible approach to the power of digital technology. Jack is finishing his Master’s in Mechanical Engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and plans to use his knowledge and talent to make energy-efficient technologies available to everyone. His dedication to environmental sustainability deeply resonates with our company's values and interest in green energy technology. Therefore, we have decided to support his further studies and grant our IoT Scholarship to him this year.
We asked Jack about his journey in engineering, current education and career goals.
Jack, why did you choose engineering?
I like solving problems, and in engineering, the whole focus is on seeing a problem and trying to find a solution to it. That is really intriguing to me. During the classes that I had growing up, I enjoyed these fields of study. They were challenging but also caused me to stay focused.
I like the excitement of solving problems. With the Internet today we are all connected across the world and we are solving more problems with the solutions that others have made. It’s accumulative, and I want to be a part of that.
You major in Mechanical Engineering. How do you want to apply your skill? What will be your career path?
Great question. I love technology, I took several math courses based on math theories and chose mechanical engineering because it allows solving problems in a tangible way. At the same time, I do really like seeing the technology development today. So when I’m finishing my studies I’m going to use this basis and dive into technology advancement. This is a kind of a big reason why I took the summer internship at Tesla.
Growing up I was always taught that whatever the biggest issue is you need to tackle that first. It’s not about solving the things that are easier. You take the biggest issue, maybe the hardest one, and get rid of it. And then it will make your life easier in general and you can focus on what’s most important and urgent.
I think right now what we are doing around sustainable energy responds to the need for it across the world, as we are naturally consuming more and more energy. As we see the growth in energy consumption, we need to ensure renewable energy increases quickly. I see myself pursuing this field until we achieve this goal. I’d like to be a part of looking for the solutions that are the most necessary right now.
We need to speed up if we want to reach these goals, right?
In the years ahead, my life and maybe all of the engineering will be focused on this problem because there’s just so much more to grow in.
It’s kind of like the system we have here. It’s called an issue tracker. Whenever there’s an issue on the line it evaluates how crucial it is — its safety impact, how often it occurs, and how much it impacts the product. Then it decides the severity of the issue. Whatever is the most rigor we tackle first.
Tell us about your studies at RIT
I went to the United States Military Academy for a while when I was growing up and spent my first years of college there. Since it’s a Military Academy, everyone graduating was supposed to be officers in the Army. The main goal was to become officers, so academics there was not the primary focus.
RIT is pretty well-known to be a school where students are intrigued in their studies, they are engaged in what they are doing. It was a shock to me the first semester seeing students were asking questions about topics not connected to the class just to learn about the field. It wasn’t something I was a part of before, and it is very contagious.
What would be your advice to young talented engineers who are pursuing similar goals in life?
A lot of times in school there are people who are excited about their studies and there are other people who aren’t.
You will find that in companies and environments important development comes from the excitement and the focus of the people who are working there. So if you really like what you are doing and studying, if you try to be a part of where the most development is happening, you will be among the like-minded people who challenge you and keep you going.
There’s always that saying ‘Do what you love.’ I can’t say it’s oversaid because it’s true. Do what you love but ensure you are around those with the same mindset. Find places like that and look for places where most engineering is occurring and that will be the place where you can do what you love doing and be around others who love it too. Who you work with can be more important than what you work on.
Once again we congratulate Jack and wish him the best of luck with his studies and career goals!
We would also like to thank all the applicants for joining our program this year. We have received many applications from brilliant students and went through dozens of forward-looking, value-oriented ideas on how to apply IoT and data science to build a more sustainable and efficient world.
We will continue supporting talented and promising students in the future. Check the official Digiteum Scholarship webpage for updates.
